1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a polarizer and a semiconductor device including the polarizer. The present invention relates to, for example, an electronic device equipped with an electro-optic device typified by a liquid crystal display panel using a polarizer or a light-emitting display device including an organic light-emitting element using a polarizer, as a component.
Note that in this specification, the term “semiconductor devices” refers to any type of devices in general, which can operate using semiconductor characteristics. Electro-optic devices, semiconductor circuits, and electronic devices are all included in the category of the semiconductor devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Light of which electric vibration is biased to a certain direction is referred to as polarized light whereas light having random electric vibration is called natural light. The display principle of liquid crystal panels uses polarization. In order to obtain the polarization, film polarizers are widely implemented. The film polarizers is formed by extending a film of a polymeric material containing iodine in a certain direction to transmit only light that is linearly polarized in a certain direction and absorb polarized light that is perpendicular to the linearly polarized light.
However, polarizers using iodine have low heat resistance, and liquid crystal panels including the polarizers can be used only under limited conditions.
Further, as a polarizer having higher heat resistance than polarizers using iodine, a polarizer having a wire grid structure in which long thin metal wires are arranged in parallel to a substrate surface is disclosed in Reference 1 (Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2002-328234).
Further, a polarizer having a wire grid structure in which a plurality of thin linearly elongated metal layers are arranged, porous layers are provided in grooves between the plurality of thin linearly elongated metal layers, and thin linearly elongated metal layers are provided on the bottom of the grooves are provided, is disclosed in Reference 2 (Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2007-33559).